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Friday, September 14, 2007

Back from vacation!

Well I'm back from 5 days on beautiful Coronado Island near San Diego. We had a wonderful trip - went to the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, ate breakfast every morning with a view of the ocean, walked the beach every evening and ate many wonderful meals. All in all, it was just great. Here are a few pictures from our trip. I really enjoyed seeing the panda bears for my first time.

I also have to share a little story today because I'm so thrilled. Have any of you ever tried to find a favorite book from childhood? It’s amazing to me that sometimes you can recall books you read as a child or teenager so clearly yet you forget a book you read a month ago. Well I had such a book I read when I was probably about 15 or 16. It’s not that the book was so tremendous – it was a typical teenage story about a young girl conquering her lack of self-confidence and dealing with the usual adolescent issues of popularity and high school. For some reason, all the details of the story stayed with me but I haven’t been able to recall the title or author of the book in the past 30+ years. It was driving me crazy! Years ago I even made my sister go to my hometown public library and search the shelves in the young adult section because I thought I had a glimmer of the author’s name. That proved fruitless.

Then a couple months ago I ran across a website run by a woman in Ohio who specializes in selling used books for children and juveniles. It’s called Loganberry Books. She got so many requests asking for information about childhood books that she started a “book stumper” service. For $2 you can send in your request and she posts it to see if she or any of her customers can identify the book. I sent my query in trying not to get my hopes up but I got an answer shortly with the name of the book and the author. The person had the book and checked out all the details I had provided about the story so I know the answer is correct. I am absolutely thrilled! There are used copies available very cheap on Amazon and other places. Some of you booklovers may understand how I feel. I told my husband how excited I was but as he’s not a reader I suspect he just thinks I’m kooky. :) On days like this, I am thankful for the power of the internet!! It’s like a piece of unfinished business I can now lay to rest.

Sounds like you had a wonderful time. I visited San Diego this summer and just loved it. Your photos are beautiful, by the way. Congrats on finding the book. I had a similar experience, but I did know the author.

And your book story is great, I know exactly how you feel! But you left out the the title and author of the book you were searching for, you never know, it might have been a favourite of one of ours too!

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